Being put in a home then told to sell your house to pay for it

seven-day-weekend

I agree with what you say ids, and it it still like this in Spain where the extended family is very important and grandma is looked after if she is frail, or looks after the tinies if she is not.

However, i would like to say that sometimes a care home is inevitable. My b-i-l and my neice looked after my sister who had Alzheimers for as long as they were able. When it got to the stage where they could no longer lift her when she fell, without hurting/bruising her and having her screaming, then very, very reluctantly she had to go into care. She knew no-one by this time. My b-i-l was absolutely devastated when this happened, and in fact I think this is when he did his grieving for the person who'd been at his side since they were both teenagers.

But I agree that having family around is best if at all possible.

Norma_Desmond

My father was diagnosed with vascular dementia a couple of years ago, and whilst mother is his main carer, we live just a mile or so away and are always on hand if he has 'difficult' spells, which thankfully aren't often.
There's also an army of social workers and professionals to visit him at home - and there he'll stay if we've got anything to do with it!

Toto

We were forced to put my Nan in a home when she was 78. She was still caring for our aunt who has a severe learning disability and she was no longer coping at all. She lived in a little cottage with a steep staircase which she couldn't manage. So, she took to using a commode because she couldn't get upstairs to the loo. One day she slipped and fell, broke her arm and her ribs.

On top of this she was becoming very forgetful, she wasn't remembering to eat, never mind put food in the fridge etc. Her home (which was once spotless), became very unhygienic and they were both suffering.

Nan didn't want to leave her home; the cottage next door was where my mum had lived prior to her death 4 years earlier (which was the starting point of Nan's decline). There were 5 of us grandchildren and we did our best to help her. We organised a home help, social services visits and meals on wheels, but we were limited because of our own work and family commitments. One brother is in the RAF, the others run businesses and travel. I live 100 miles away and have a severely handicapped daughter too.

We wanted to help Nan stay at home, but because we had all of the financial obligations which come with mortgages and kids, we simply couldn't be there every day. We tried to make sure someone was there once a day so we worked on a 5 day rota as best we could.

Then we discovered that the carer who was going in daily to help Nan wash and to make her a sandwich wasn't doing anything of the sort. She was taking Nan’s money, saying she was doing shopping for her; only no food entered her house. The final straw came when my brother went round one afternoon to find Nan laying on the floor at the bottom of the stairs. The carer hadn't turned up, so Nan tried to go upstairs to get some clothes from her bedroom. She slipped on the top step and fell down. She had been laying there helpless for 3 hours, with a broken neck.

Social services agreed to place Nan in a care home, our aunt too. Only they wanted them to go to separate places 40 miles apart. We refused this; it was so very important that they stayed together. The only way we could do this was by funding it, so we found a home for people with learning difficulties who also took elderly people with dementia. It was a lovely place and we were keen to get them housed there. The only way we could do this was by funding it ourselves. So, we had to make the difficult choice to sell Nan's house.

Selling up was hard, not because of the money; none of us could care less about that. It was painful to think of other people in Nan's cottage, we couldn't explain to her that the house was to be sold, she didn't understand by this stage, to the day she died she insisted she was going home at the weekend. It was all very difficult but I am very pleased we made that choice for her and our aunt (who is still very happily living in the care home).

Not once did it enter our heads that we were spending our inheritance. That house was Nan's, her home, her money. She needed the funds to pay for her final years, that's how it should be. I am so very happy we had the chance to sell a house to put her in the best home we could find. I would never have forgiven myself if she spent her final years in a place where she was badly treated or unhappy.

In fact, when she died, there was some money left over, not much, but a little. Social services agreed to fund our Aunt's place in the home, but we decided to use that money to provide a small fund for our aunt and to buy a minibus for the home so they could take the residents out on day trips.

I'm not saying we are saints, we did make some decisions which we found difficult and mistakes were made. But I do hate the suggestion that an elderly relative's money belongs to their heirs. The younger generation have the chance to provide for themselves, to build their own nest eggs. I know we could never have lived with ourselves if we had made a decision to take the state funded separate homes to secure a few thousand for ourselves. I don't know how or why this even enters people's heads to be honest.

Geoffo_M

Under case law, councils are liable to fund elderly care when it is a situation of 'continuing care'. This occurs typically when a patient moves directly from a hospital to a care home. In a landmark case in 1999, Mrs Pam Coughlan won her lawsuit against the government - and councils were held liable for funding. Councils, understandably, have since chosen to ignore this ruling.

budget_counsellor_shaz

Money for new babies, nursery schools, family tax credit, family allowance, its not suprising there's nothing left for the retired. The politicians aren't keen to promote a better life for the elderly, it doesn't win votes. The very wealthy have very good accountants to ensure their money is safe the rest...

My nan looked after her mum, my mum looked after her mum and I'll probably look after my mum.

Well at least we won't have to worry when we get older my husband always tells me that euthanasia will become compulsary and being old will be a something nobody will need to discuss. :rolleyes:

Shaz

margaretclare

Toto, what a very moving account of your Nan's and Aunt's lives.

The trouble with any involvement with Social Services is that 'one size fits all' and they seem to take no account of people's individuality, wishes, habits, history, whatever. As for instance, putting a married couple in separate homes some distance apart. Ideally they should be in the same home and in a double room because that's what they've been used to for the duration of their married lives. Is that so hard to understand? I often wake in the night after a bad dream and I reach out my hand - there is always a warm comforting hand to grasp mine in response. And we wake beside each other every morning. I've been widowed and know what it's like to stretch out a hand and there's nobody there. Just simple things that can't be valued in money terms.

I'm not saying we are saints, we did make some decisions which we found difficult and mistakes were made. But I do hate the suggestion that an elderly relative's money belongs to their heirs. The younger generation have the chance to provide for themselves, to build their own nest eggs. I know we could never have lived with ourselves if we had made a decision to take the state funded separate homes to secure a few thousand for ourselves. I don't know how or why this even enters people's heads to be honest.

Toto, I absolutely agree with this. But there are two separate and distinct schools of thought on this topic. One is as you've outlined. The other is 'we paid in all those years, we're entitled, the state should pay, whatever we have is for an inheritance for the next generation'. IMHO those two views are completely irreconcilable.


Shaz, among the things you've listed:

Money for new babies, nursery schools, family tax credit, family allowance, its not suprising there's nothing left for the retired. The policians aren't keen to promote a better life for the elderly, it doesn't win votes.

Don't forget also, there are things like foreign aid (even though the Treasury may have to borrow - how often are we told not to be in debt and still give to charity?) and Child Benefit for foreign workers here, unpopular wars, setting up 9 unelected Regional Parliaments in England because that's what the EU wants....there's a long long list. It was illuminating to me that in the Chancellor's speech last week there was no mention at all of the elderly, apart from a £5 a week increase in pension credit and a list of things that are in place already, like winter fuel payment. The IHT announcement grabbed the headlines, as it was designed to do.

Margaret

EdInvestor

budget_counsellor_shaz wrote: »

The politicians aren't keen to promote a better life for the elderly, it doesn't win votes.

If true,that's about to change with the retirement of the huge babyboomer generation. The silver vote is about to become very large, and of course older people tend to actually turn out and use their vote, whereas many young people can't be bothered.

seven-day-weekend

I personally do not see, and never have done, why people other than the very poorest should be given money for having children - and now they are also given money to pay someone else to look after them!

There may be more money for the elderly if this was cut back. You have a choice about having children - you don't about getting old.

(Although I can see that if people chose not to have children that would cause huge problems).

tiamaria

My nan was a very demanding woman even before she became ill & my parents became carers as soon as they married (in the 1940's). They were carers for the next 30/40 years.

They never had a holiday and rarely a day out as she would kick up a fuss if they weren't around. My mother would have loved to move to a nice house but it wasn't an option. When nan got ill with dementia (she was always unstable) my parents looked after her to the best of their ability until they had to admit defeat and she had to go into a home for the care she needed.

6 months after she went into the home my father had a serious heart attack because he was so stressed at not being able to care for her and the way she was towards him. He never did regain his health & my mother spent the next 12 years as his carer before his death.

So I guess I'm selfish because I did want some money left for my parents in the hope that they would have some sort of life before they died. They spent their whole lives as 24/7 on call carers/shoppers/cooks etc, and it was hard to watch as I was growing up. They gave up their lives to look after a very difficult person & got nothing in return. Anything they might have had they had well earned, though any inheritance had never crossed their minds.

And yes, i suppose if she had been a nice person I would feel differently.

milkydrink

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

I personally do not see, and never have done, why people other than the very poorest should be given money for having children - and now they are also given money to pay someone else to look after them!

There may be more money for the elderly if this was cut back. You have a choice about having children - you don't about getting old.

(Although I can see that if people chose not to have children that would cause huge problems).

But usually (but not always), its the families with the largest number of childen who are claiming all the goodies.
The working families can only usually afford to have one or two.